Gluten sensitivity is an immune response that also causes non-bowel symptoms like headaches and skin rashes.
Gluten grains - wheat, barley and rye - also contain fructans (a "FODMAP") that causes bowel symptoms in sensitive foodies.
Some people are sensitive to chemicals (glyphosphates) sprayed on grains and other crops to kill weeds and speed up drying.
The lack of fibre in highly refined grains like white rice and pasta can cause constipation in sensitive foodies with slow digestion.
Serving sizes:
These comfort foods are easy to digest, i.e. take less energy and are quickly absorbed, giving your body a glucose (blood sugar) boost. They don't have fibre or many nutrients.
Good when you're under physical stress♡
Glucose spikes increases the risk of diabetes !
Too much "simple" carbs increases the risk of heart disease !
The fibre content in these grains helps food move through the gut and slows the absorption of glucose so that it fuels the body more slowly and evenly. These foods are also packed with nutrients.
Good sources of protein
Contain vitamin B, iron and magnesium
Oats and amaranth have healthy fats and phosphorous
Because most people tolerate the type of fibre it contains, it wins on nutrients, tastes great and helps with weight management. Plus it makes a super easy, low cost substitute for white flour. Read more.
*Millet, buckwheat, bulgur wheat, quinoa and amaranth are not technically classified as grains and are often called "pseudo" grains.
When bestie and I started our search for food love we were prepared to find ours unrequited here and there. But nothing prepared us for the emotional elevator we continue to experience with these playboys. We're both comfort carb-eaters so saying no to that sexily pesto-dressed late night pasta booty (causing) call is often impossible. So we were relieved when Google told us that white rice, pasta's slightly less handsome but more eligible cousin, was highest on the list of easiest foods to digest.
We'd recently moved to London and the Heathrow injection was taking effect, but it wasn't just weight gain swelling our tummies. We found that the famed pub at every corner came with pain and gas at every turn. Nevermind love, all we wanted was some quiet comfort. In desperation we began the strictest of elimination diets starting with vegetable stock and progressing to white rice. Bestie reacted dramatically. After days of pain she looked at me over a glass of water as she swallowed some laxatives and said "I react to white rice? The blandest of the bland! If I was a horse they'd put me down".
She went on to react to cucumber next, so she may have a point. But the upside is that it led us to uncover a gamut of non-gluten grain sensitivities and reactions. The downside was our tug-of-war trying to sort the complexity into something digestible (excuse me). I wanted a rule of thumb. Bestie insisted that oversimplifying is what had caused her this existential food crisis.
In the end, we did not compromise. As per the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People → (from business training programmes in our previous lives), we synergized.
Fibre, also called roughage, is the part of plant-based foods that doesn't get digested. Natural, unprocessed or "whole" foods have more fibre than processed, or refined, foods because the fibrous parts are removed during processing.
Comfort foods get a bad rap because they tend to be high calorie, high carb and not very healthy. But we all need comfort from time to time, both psychologically and physically, and food can be an effective way to get it.
